(The state of crime in Wallingford, and the police’s reaction to it, is serious enough that I’m going to set aside the normal “Wallyhood We” conceit of this blog, and write this one in the first person singular. The playful, snarky tone doesn’t seem appropriate.)
I was so shocked by Kristi’s comment to the Block Watch? post that I felt I needed to talk with the police about it before responding. It read, in part:
I was one of the recent prowl victims. I’m pretty sure I found my stolen GPS receiver on craigslist; it was obvious that the same person was selling several of them, and each one had a different story about why he was selling it. I e-mailed Officer Jackson and called him twice but he never returned my call.
I did get a call from some other detective after I filled out a contact form online. When I asked if he could help me get it back, he recommended that I set up a meeting with the seller in a public place, tell him my unit was stolen and that I wanted to check the serial number, and then dial 911 — “90% of the time, they just run away.” Um, what about the other 10%? When I mentioned that this didn’t sound safe, he said: “Bring a guy with you.” Perfect! If I’m gonna get knifed by a crackhead thief, why not let a friend in on the action?
The cops had a chance to question someone who may have been responsible for several break-ins/thefts, and they did nothing.
I had already been directed to Officer Lawrence Jackson, Wallingford’s Community Police Team officer by Diane Horswill, North Precinct’s Crime Prevention Coordinator, so I e-mailed him and asked him to take a look at the comment and respond.
No response.
I e-mailed him again, telling him that I was a member of the community and wanted to talk to him about what people could do about crime in Wallingford. No response. I tried a third time. No response.
Although only his e-mail address is provided on the web site, I had his phone number from the comments, so I tried calling him. No answer. I left a voice mail and waited a few days. No response. I tried calling him again, noting in my voice mail that I had e-mailed several times and left him a prior voice mail. That was on Thursday.
When the weekend came and I still had no response, I dropped Diane Horswill a line and let her know that things weren’t going well with our Community Police Team officer:
just wanted to let you know that I’ve e-mailed Lawrence Jackson three times and left him two voice mails. He hasn’t responded at all. I’m going to start trying to climb the chain to see why our Community Police Representative doesn’t respond to his community, but the whole thing is pretty depressing. Obviously, I’ll be blogging about it, as well.
This apparently, got his attention, as I finally got a phone call from Officer Jackson today (thus, scoring better than Kristi, a crime victim, ever did).
He said that he never received my e-mails, they must have ended up in his spam folder (Diane actually cc’ed him on one of the e-mails, and that came from within the department, so that’s a bit surprising; no excuse was offered for the non-response to voice mail). I told him the story from the blog and expressed my surprise, at which point he told me that he had to refer all questions from the “Press” to the Media Relations Unit.
OK, well, at least I wanted to understand what his role was: “Long-running issues that impact the community.”
“Like car prowl?” I asked.
“No necessarily”
“OK, what do you cover?”
“Drug houses, parking issues…the list is really long.”
I started in with another question about an issue that a neighbor had reported at which point he reminded me that I would have to speak to the media relations office and hung up.
Thank you, Officer Jackson.
I called the Media Relations Office during working hours (11 am). They didn’t answer. I left a voice mail. I’ll let you know if / when it is returned.
Nicely handled, I look forward to the follow up. Responsiveness of government is one of the top most important issues for the press to cover. I have similar stories from dealings with the parks department and Seattle Public Schools- There are some of the best people and also least functional people in government, and it rarely relates to where they are in the organizational chain. I have no idea about Office Jackson; he may have other priorities, but there’s never an excuse in government for a lack of responsiveness to reasonable inquiries.
I’m sure SPD will tell you they’re “understaffed”. That’s a hard pill to swallow when you see a group of TEN bike cops riding slowly to and through Golden Gardens on a sunny Monday afternoon.
I really appreciate your thoroughness in your investigation!! Thanks.
I think all of our North Seattle neighborhoods are seeing increases in property and robbery crimes. This information below was posted on the Ballard blog last month and it seems relevant here as well. I changed the CPT officer’s name to reflect the one assigned to Wallingford (helpful as he his.)
For those of you who live in Wallingford and are organizing ad-hoc, I’d recommend the following, assuming you haven’t already done this:
Don’t just confine your concerns to this blog. Instead, take action and contact the Captain of the Seattle Police Department’s North Precinct, which has responsibility for Wallingford. His name is Capt. Mike Washburn, and his email is: [email protected]. The main contact phone for the precinct is (206) 684-0850
Ask him to set up a meeting with you and other concerned residents and business owners to talk about your concerns and their plans to address them. Don’t let them push you off on Diane Horswill the Crime Prevention liason…she has no power to change anything and is not in a command role.
You have also referenced another SPD Officer on here, Lawrence Jackson. Officer Jackson is the Community Policing Team officer assigned solely to Wallingford and Fremont, south of N. 45th Street. His phone is (206) 684-4739 and his email is [email protected] . North of 45th Street, the CPT officer is Travis Testerman ([email protected]). Both of them are under the supervision of a Sergeant on The North Precinct CPT team: Sgt. Dianne Newsom – (206) 684-0794. or [email protected]
There’s an interesting description of the CPT objectives on the SPD website. Not sure how based in reality it is, but it reads as follows:
WHAT DO CPT OFFICERS DO?
“While patrol officers assigned to a certain beat and sector are usually very familiar with the area they patrol, CPT Officers go one step further. CPT officers do not respond to 911 calls for service and are instead assigned a specific area to focus on long-term, often chronic problems. They patrol many times a day, checking and re-checking known “hot spots”.
It is their job to know the residents in troubled apartments, to recognize by sight, the “regulars” who congregate on the corner, and to understand the ongoing problems and concerns of neighbors and businesses. Residents and business owners get to know and trust the officers, making it easier to work together to resolve and prevent problems. CPT is about understanding ongoing issues that go back weeks and months and taking steps to prevent problems before they arise. The officers are a unique and invaluable resource in the communities they serve. ”
If you are concerned about what happens to the people who actually do get arrested, you should voice your concerns about quick release back onto the streets to: Ed McKenna, the Police Department’s North Precinct liaison from the City Attorney’s Office, can be reached at 206-684-7765 or [email protected].”
And lastly, there is a way to look up a license plate number online at the Seattle Municipal Court website. If the owner of the vehicle has ever had any type of traffic citation, even parking tickets, you can see the court records of those, and usually you can find the person’s name. You can then use the same website (or the Statewide website) to search on that name and see if the person has a criminal history. It’s a little clunky, but it works well if they’re an repeat offender.
The Seattle Courts site is: http://web1.seattle.gov/courts/cpi/
The State Courts site is: http://dw.courts.wa.gov/
The seats were stolen out of my husbands car a few months ago (he has a honda s2000 and apparently the seats are a hot item for people modding honda civics). The ragtop was slit open and it was obviously a professional job. We talked to the police and apparently there have been a string of similar car-related thefts in Wallingford. Never got any farther than that, btw.
Gee, give Officer Jackson a break; he’s still tuckered out from protecting Wallingford from having Puffin Glass in the old Juice Goddess space. (Don’t you feel safer already?)
But seriously, Wallyhood, great work on this story. Thanks and keep it up!
Have you considered sharing this story with more mainstream press? I think this sounds right up Jesse Jones’ (“Get Jesse”) alley. That would absolutely light a fire under the media relations dept to respond to this.
That is unbelievable. This blog is so not “the press”; this is not a region-wide daily metro with no real connection to the community its inquiring into, and he’s obviously just trying to shake off what he probably views as another annoying task he was strapped with that has little to do with his “real” job. I hate it when police officers use the difficult structure of police organization to avoid the public. It’s really unfair to people who genuinely want to be involved in bettering their communities.
I’d love to join in on a field trip to the SPD station or to Zoka, or MIghty-O, to have a community meeting with Ofcr. Jackson and Capt. Washburn — not anything critical, just a little get-to-know-you, here’s-who-we-are, how-can-we-help-you-help-us meeting. Perhaps he’ll find it easier in the future to respond to people he knows.
Thanks for the nicely written post. I live next to Meridian Park and years ago our block asked for some police assistance with issues surrounding dicey people in/around the park. It took several calls, by all the neighbors, several weeks, but we finally got some response. It did take forever, though.
A personal story: a few years ago someone “camped” overnight in our backyard and left all sorts of garbage. I called the police and explained what happened and that it was kind of disturbing. The officer I got said, “so a guy had a picnic in your backyard? There’s not much we can do about that. Let us know if he tries break in. Bye.” He was so sarcastic and degrading, I felt more disturbed my call to the police than by the unwanted overnight guest.
I appreciate the commentor who linked to the license plate info. I think it would help us make a case w/ the police when our block calls with issue.
The car prowl response is weird–you’d think they would take that seriously.
You folks realize that crime is way down from three, two, or even one decade ago, right? And you do realize that if a hundred cops set about investigating your stolen car seats 24/7, they still wouldn’t be able to find anything, right? That’s why they don’t do it like that. And I can assure you that the police department is working very hard indeed to break up car theft rings from the other end. And without a serial number a single small item of stolen property isn’t going to amount to anything. Wallingford is still close to the safest neighborhood in America. Just because it makes it onto a blog doesn’t make it an epidemic.
Fnarf: Could you post a cite to where you got your stats? That would be reassuring, actually, and I’d like to see trend statistics wrt crime three years (decades?), two years (decades?) or a decade ago, and also a comparison with other neighborhoods in the U.S.
Also, just because it isn’t an epidemic doesn’t mean people shouldn’t be concerned. I don’t think anyone expects a SWAT team to show up to find the perpetrator of a car prowl (regardless of whether it was a car seat that was stolen). (Why a car seat?? Do people steal those more than stereo systems, or cds, or GPS systems?) But it would be nice to get maybe a call back, or an email reply to a question.
As far as the police comment about 90% of the time they just run away, that is seriously one of the most messed up things I’ve ever heard. Police should launch an investigation when they have a fairly solid lead to go on. There are probably only a hand full of people doing this in Wallingford, but in my experience these types of cats know each other. Catch one and the rest will probably hear about it and hopefully move on to softer targets. Still, unless the cops catch someone in the act, it is very very difficult to find the culprit in a car prowl.
Why am I hearing police cars go up & down lower Wallingford Ave tonight, making that little “beep beep” sound they have on their sirens? Perhaps they want people to know they’re actually here and not at Greenlake? 😉
Fnarf, I don’t know how you can make that claim about crime being down when there is no way to do a comparison of this year’s crime stats to previous years in the same area since the SPD switched from reporting by zip code to reporting by patrol zones (which don’t correlate). And while violent crimes may be down, property crimes are up, and Seattle has one of the highest car theft/ car prowl rates in the country. But because the courts rarely punish those offenders with more than a slap on the wrist, the police throw up their hands in frustration. Try even getting a live officer to show up at your residence to take a car prowl/theft report any more.
I’ve personally been hit by residential burglars twice in the past 3 years, after 12 years of no incidents prior to that. So to me, that’s a deteriorating situation. I’m starting a block watch with my neighbors so at least we have some regular communication with each other. I know the SPD can’t prevent crime per se, especially with the budget constraints, but it would be nice to have them refrain from the jaded sarcasm that seems to be the normal response to citizen pleas.
And finally, why don’t you keep your comments to your own neighborhood (Phinney) blog. Or to the Slog where you’re lost in the cacophony.
One of my coworkers spouses is a cop on the Eastside, and I went to him with my concerns about Seattle PD after a few incidents I had in the last few years.
According to him, the Seattle PD was working without a contract since around 2006. They were some of the lowest paid officers in the state, and were frustrated at being overworked and underpaid, while unable to reach agreement on a contract.
I haven’t really followed the Seattle PD contract situation, but a quick search online seems to indicate their contract was set in 2008 with big increases in pay. One would think this would have a positive impact on their morale and attitude, but it seems that it hasn’t.
Study after study shows that people who live in the safest areas fear crime even more than people in the most dangerous. To read the comments on this blog and other neighborhood blogs around here, you’d think you all lived in East St. Louis instead of the safest neighborhood on earth.
Year-to-year fluctuations in crime rates mean less than day-to-day fluctuations in Ichiro’s batting average. The fact is, crime — even property crime — is lower now than it was in 1980, and has been going steadily down for a long time: http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/wacrime.htm
Another fact: you fear crime because you hear about it more. These neighborhood blogs seem to be serving as an outlet for fearful old people who think the world is going to hell all around them. Well, the truth is, this little corner of the world is doing OK, and if you don’t think so, you can’t remember 1980 as well as you think you can. Or 1990, or…. The news media’s main function is to drum up fear over crime — almost always unwarranted.
You also hear about crime because it’s noteworthy. I’m sorry that Resident has been burgled twice, but that’s not a trend, nor does it speak to the average. But if it’s anecdotes you want, how about this: I’ve been burgled twice, too — in 1989 and 1997, and physically assaulted too — in 1984. Where’s your “deteriorating situation” there?
Fnarf, thanks for providing that data. It’s worth noting that the concern people have is that crime has been going UP since the economy went into a tailspin. Unfortunately, the Disaster Center data you link to only goes up through 2007, prior to this period.
Some data I found at http://homes.point2.com/Neighborhood/US/Washington/King-County/Seattle/Wallingford-Demographics.aspx showed that for 2007, 98105 and 98103 were far ABOVE the national average for crime rates on almost all crime stats.
When I originally started looking into all this ( http://www.wallyhood.org/2009/01/home-invasion ), neither the Seattle Times nor the New York Times seemed to have done any better at getting up to date data.
I guess what’s frustrating for me isn’t just the crime (which is frustrating), it’s the police attitude towards it. They had an opportunity to catch a thief and it wasn’t interesting to them. They mock people who report crimes. They don’t respond when you reach out. If they can’t actually protect me, can’t they at least be nice?
Several months ago a similar type of pathetic police response occurred to my friend in the Central District. Her house was broken into causing about $4000 in damages. A new laptop, cell phone and cash were taken. This was one of many similar break-ins that had occurred recently in my friend’s neighborhood I called the cell phone company and they were able to provide a long list of phone #’s called by the thief who had the phone (hey i think this is something the police might of thought to do!). Many of the #’s were repeats and surely could have provided good leads for a detective interested in investigating this apparent crime ring. After many phone calls to the police I was able to finally get someone who seemed slightly intrigued by this info. They never picked up the list of calls. Very disturbing!
This post is amazing. Good job!
This thread went cold back in April. Over the months since we were the victims of a car prowler in early April, my level of vigilance has definitely increased. That being said, I haven’t heard much lately about either the car prowl/home burglary issue or the police response to it. Is crime down a bit recently? How have people responded to thievery in the neighborhood? I wonder whether longer days and shorter nights and more people out on the streets at dusk leads to fewer thieves roaming the ‘hood.
Well, my car was broken into last Monday night (Aug 3rd) in the lower Wallingford area – the second time that I’ve had a car break-in this year. I reported it to the police and they urged everyone who has experienced a break-in or seen something suspicious to make sure they report it so they can focus their resources. I will also be emailing the senior police officers whose emails are given above. I think we just need to keep on complaining and campaigning.
has it really gotten this comfortable to walk the streets? Do you think we could get more eyes out there? Ive seen shows where they test people to see how they react to this stuff and they just let this happen right in front of them!